The Buddhists introduced from Thibet into China their god of music, who is represented as a rather jovial-looking man with a moustache and an imperial, playing the _pepa_, a kind of lute with four silken strings. Perhaps some interesting information respecting the ancient Chinese musical instruments may be gathered from the famous ruins of the Buddhist temples _Ongcor-Wat_ and _Ongcor-Thôm_, in Cambodia. These splendid ruins are supposed to be above two thousand years old: and, at any rate, the circumstance of their age not being known to the Cambodians suggests a high antiquity. On the bas-reliefs with which the temples were enriched are figured musical instruments, which European travellers describe as “flutes, organs, trumpets, and drums, resembling those of the Chinese.” Faithful sketches of these representations might, very likely, afford valuable hints to the student of musical history. THE HINDUS. [Illustration] In the Brahmin mythology of the Hindus the god Nareda is the inventor of the _vina_, the principal national instrument of Hindustan. Saraswati, the consort of Brahma, may be regarded as the Minerva of the Hindus. She is the goddess of music as well as of speech; to her is attributed the invention of the systematic arrangement of the sounds into a musical scale. She is represented seated on a peacock and playing on a stringed instrument of the lute kind. Brahma himself we find depicted as a vigorous man with four handsome heads, beating with his hands upon a small drum; and Vishnu, in his incarnation as Krishna, is represented as a beautiful youth playing upon a flute. The Hindus construct a peculiar kind of flute, which they consider as the favourite instrument of Krishna. They have also the divinity Ganesa, the god of Wisdom, who is represented as a man with the head of an elephant, holding a _tamboura_ in his hands. It is a suggestive fact that we find among several nations in different parts of the world an ancient tradition, according to which their most popular stringed instrument was originally derived from the water.